What If A Two-Party System Gets Down To One?

The Plain Dealer Cleveland

Posted August 13, 2000

One question that is bound to come up during this fall's political campaign is this: What happens if one party wins it all?
If George W. Bush is elected president and the Republicans keep control of the Senate and the House (which is likely if their presidential candidate is a winner), the GOP will be completely in charge of the federal government for the first time since a two-year span (1952-54) during the Eisenhower administration...
Philip Klinkner, who teaches in the government department at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., offers the counterintuitive analysis that a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade would be the Republican Party's worst nightmare.
"Republicans at their convention did not talk about abortion because it divides them," Klinkner said. "Pro-choice members of their own party keep voting Republican largely because they believe the court will protect abortion rights."
Overturning Roe v. Wade would energize advocates of abortion rights and cause a backlash against Republicans at every level, Klinkner predicted.